Page 61 of Glimmer in the Darkness

If only Cassidy had been home that day. When she was ten, the neighbors had invited her over to play, and Mom had been passed out on the couch. After Cassidy’d fixed Becca breakfast, she’d kissed her good-bye and gone next door. The neighbor had gotten a new Barbie Jeep, and they’d played with the dolls for hours.

Too long.

When she realized the time, a pain grew in the pit of her stomach that told her something was wrong. She didn’t know what, she didn’t know why. She only knew she had to check on Becca.

She walked in to find Mom kneeling over Becca, eyes glazed over and wide. Confused.

Becca hadn’t been breathing.

Cassidy called an ambulance, but it was too late.

Becca died.

Mom claimed Becca had fallen, but the injuries weren’t consistent with that story. And Cassidy had told the truth. For the first time, no matter the threatening scowl Mom gave her, Cassidy had looked the scary policeman in the eyes and told him the things her mother did. How she pushed her. Hit her. Burned her. Cassidy told the policeman how she’d tried for years to protect her sister. And she told him how she’d failed her sister that day because she’d been playing with a Barbie Jeep.

But even as she’d blamed herself, she’d known, deep down, it was Mom’s fault.

Mom went to prison. Cassidy ended up in foster care, swearing she’d never, ever be like her mother.

And then, after promising Hallie she’d protect her, promising she’d never leave her…

She’d stood over Hallie’s body.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t save her sister and she couldn’t save Hallie and she couldn’t save Ella.

Why was she here? Not here in this cave, surrounded by the most terrifying memories of her life. Not here in Coventry, the town that had never accepted her. Not here in New Hampshire, the state that had failed to protect Cassidy and Becca from an abusive, alcoholic mother.

Here, on the planet.

No family. No loved ones. No real home.

As she’d flown from the West Coast to the East, she’d convinced herself that this was why she’d survived a decade past. So that she could come back and save Ella.

That there was a purpose for all the pain. That God could use the worst parts of her existence to bring life to someone else.

She’d been wrong.

And all she’d done for the first twenty-eight years of her life was to prove, over and over, that she couldn’t save anybody.

And here was more evidence.

Why was she here?

Chapter Twenty-One

The cave existed. Standing in its center, James tried to push away all the questions and images—his sister and his girlfriend and a killer. Right in this spot.

What had happened to Hallie here? To Cassidy? James might never know all the facts, could never know all the fears, but he could feel, somehow, a sense of… darkness. The murderer might’ve abandoned this cave, but an aura of wickedness lingered like the scent of sulphur after an extinguished match.

James tried to shake it off, that oppressive evil that seemed to permeate his skin and fill his heart with despair. But the truth was the truth. Evil things had happened here.

His search of the cave, limited though it was with the narrow beam of his flashlight, gave further evidence that, at some point, somebody had been here. Earth disturbed by hands or bodies. Black marks on the otherwise gray walls that led up to the ceiling and out a narrow gap in the rocks. Somebody had lit a fire here. What that proved was that, though those who claimed to know this mountain better than anybody swore no caves existed, somebody knew about this place. Somebody besides Cassidy.

The kidnapper.

Where was he now?

If he’d seen Cassidy and James the night before and guessed their destination, he could have moved Ella. That was possible, but the guy was a killer. Why not just kill them?